qusp
Member of the Trade: Twisted Cables
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2008
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Quote:
Good pics.
I noticed the absence of QUSP in the pics.
He must have been stuck in the broom closet finishing off the work that overwhelmed him at the Sydney meet.
I wonder if he will get to listen to a headphone at the next meet - probably not - there's always something to build, repair, fiddle with, tune, waste time on, or desecrate.
WTH?? mate desecrate??. yes I should have pulled the pin in Sydney when it became obvious that I had to build an entirely different dac/amp than planned, in Sydney, with no sleep, with none of my tools, surrounded by peopl and in an unfamiliar workshop, (after having only a bit over a week to finish a project years in the making) in a matter of hours; that was dumb, to rush with my own gear put into a state it will never be used in for others to hear and for appearances more than for myself. there was some really good gear there thanks to the generosity of yourself and others (though you yourself were missing of course), but the best of the stuff that was there apart from K1000, I know is really not to my taste anyway and I assume from your post that you took my mentioning this in the thread as some kind of personal affront, because i'm not sure I have ever even met you. I dont really like stats, HD800 stadium soundstage doesnt do it for me and my music; and the T1 I have heard before at length when recabling Eric's balanced pair that was there that so many have complimented me on. I only regret I didnt get to catch up with the PEOPLE there until afterwards at dinner, oh and I wish I heard the wicked looking DIY amp at the top of the stairs with the superb casework
still eagerly awaiting to hear one of your DIY builds, i'm sure with your immense knowledge of our field that when you get around to finishing one of your own, it will be really something to behold.....
then after some sleep and caught up on my actual job building cables when I returned and preparing the house (and my workshop) for going on the market, I went about disassembling the buffalo II dac that was 99% done and building the ackodac that was meant to be in sydney, with no firmware to run it (though it works in defaults), but decided I didnt want to miss another meet, so pulled the pin and turned up around 2. funnily enough the gear I brought with me, my portable/transportable stuff with JH13 mostly, still sounded better to my ears than anything I got to try while there.
Impressions
Right, with justifying my life done, my impressions of the Brisbane meet are fairly brief, but I managed to get around to most of the stuff I wanted to hear.
the HE-5 were quite nice out of the HiFiMAN amp, I like the nice touch of the regulator and heatsink viewable through the window in the case. the speed of these cans was quite impressive, comfort a touch lacking, but the weight was not as bad as I was expecting and the sound overall was very good. I can see how these or something like them (something planar) could fit in my stable, I need a really different can like those or LCD-2 to compliment what i already have. The only issue I see is I would ideally need to build myself a new amp to bring the best out of either of these cans, as they are quite different in design to anything else I own. not the easiest headphones to audition in a meet enviroment because of being so very open, but all the same I got enough cues to decide that they and the LCD-2 are on my short list (very short) of headphones that I still want to buy.
the W1000i/x? just like many of its relatives really is a beautiful headphone to look at and while it gets most things technically right, very articulate etc; I just find it leaves me cold. It lacks the visceral punch I want in a headphone to make up for the lack of physical space and these are strangely lacking in natural tone for a woody. I have this same problem with all AT though, its annoying because I really would love to own a pair, as they are just so god damn pretty to look at!!. I just figure i'll never get to own one though, as I have tried them all with an open mind and really wanted to like them (some more than once) and the result is always the same, perhaps with some tubes?? though I didnt find that enough to help W5000. my taste is if anything a smidge warm of neutral (what I consider 'natural') and I look to my headphones generally to provide that natural tone, the rest of my rigs are built/bought to be as transparent as possible; thus my love of discrete solid state and even the odd opamp lD
I was quite surprised by how good the little Kingrex PCM270X? USB dac sounded with the ipad and camera connection kit, feeding my modded FiQuest and HD600/JH13 the sound was quite good really, with a nice USB input and perhaps ASRC reclocking (if needed) in a dac this could be a really great little transportable holiday rig for movies, music and perhaps games as well, I was expecting the ipad to spit out a pretty jittery and perhaps sibilant sound with this. it wont work with my D10 (without modification) because the dac's power runs off USB in the ibasso, so this was the first time I got to listen to the digital out of the ipad, i've only had it a week though.
pity I didnt get around to listening to the Eddie current 'balancing act', thats a serious looking tube amp!!; was my beat up old HD600 balanced cable really the only balanced cable there?? Glad it still worked, that thing has really been through the ringer and the connections in the BAXLR are solderless, so was slightly worried there might be a bad/loose connection looking at the state of the connector housings before I handed it over :S
the modded beyers (DT880??) were really bassy, even with the bass knob on my Lisa III turned all the way down, I like Denons too, so in the right mood I dont mind a bit extra slam, but I just found the detail in the midrange to suffer a bit, was a bit distracted at that point though, so didnt give that much of a chance.
overall not bad at all guys, the venue turned out quite well, there was a good vibe and weve made a pretty good start; it can only get better/bigger from here. i'm a bit spoiled (as Natonrice said to me) with the last 3 years sydney meets being my only reference, but there sure is more going on here in my home town than I gave it credit for, jebus youre all babes in the woods though, I felt like an old man at 36